Designing an Authentic Life with Barney Abramson
If you’ve migrated to the United States from another country, chances are you had to assimilate to a new culture in one way or another. Whether your parents encouraged you to assimilate at a young age or you felt pressured into it at work, assimilation is a common theme in many immigrants’ stories.
As an immigrant, assimilation may have been your way of being accepted into your new and unfamiliar community. But it can eat at your confidence and make you feel less than your peers.
If you haven’t heard it already, we want to tell you that it’s OK to be yourself. It’s OK to be proud of where you come from. It’s OK to be authentically you.
Finding out who you authentically are, can be a difficult process. It requires a lot of introspection and can bring up painful past traumas. That’s why we are talking to this week’s guest Barney Abramson. Barney is an immigrant from the Dominican Republic and has been designing his own authentic life for the past few years. Now he’s here to share his story and help you become more authentically yourself.
Barney Abramson’s creative journey began in the Dominican Republic staying indoors and drawing his favorite 80s cartoons all day long. That creative passion grew into a fruitful career, and he went on to become an award-winning designer. In addition to his day job, Barney consults as a creative director, strategist, and manager. He helps businesses and individuals with their creative problems. When he’s not designing, he’s writing about his experiences as an Afro-Latino creative in corporate America. He uses social media to connect, mentor, teach, and inspire the next generation of designers.
This week Barney discusses his life after migrating to the US as a child, attempting to assimilate into primarily white neighborhoods, and how that affected his confidence as a young professional.
In this episode, we talked about
- What it’s like assimilating to mostly white neighborhoods as a child
- How he found out he had an accent
- How his wife’s master's degree changed his life
- Why growing a beard was his first step to being more authentic at work
Leave a comment